The party won 851 seats across 164 urban local bodies, making inroads into the traditional strongholds of Congress and NCP.

The elections were seen as a litmus test for the Devendra Fadnavis’ government and are being viewed as ‘mini’ Assembly elections. Fadnavis had led the BJP campaign to make inroads in the rural areas where Congress and NCP hold sway.

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During the campaign, Fadnavis hailed the demonetization move as a surgical strike on black money, the Congress highlighted the hardships being faced by the poor and common man due to the move among other issues.

Elections were held for 3,705 seats spread over the 147 municipal councils and 17 nagar panchayats.

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PM Modi tweeted thanking people for putting faith on BJP.

I thank people of Maharashtra for placing their faith in BJP in local body polls. This is a win for pro-poor & development politics of BJP.

As many as 15,826 candidates are in the fray for 3,705 seats spread over the municipal councils and nagar panchayats, where voting was held yesterday in the first phase with around 70 per cent of the electorate exercising its franchise.

Polling was also held for municipal council presidents post in 147 places for which 1,013 candidates are in the race.

The main issues during the polls were: demonetization, farm distress, improvement in rural infrastructure and caste tensions due to morcha by various communities, apart from local matters.

While ruling alliance partners, BJP and Shiv Sena, had tied up for the polls, the opposition Congress and NCP didn’t formally announce any alliance.